Labour leader's failure to clarify results of an internal inquiry into claims
of vote-rigging in Falkirk is unbecoming of a man with ambitions to be Prime
Minister

ED MILIBAND's deafening silence and refusal to tell the voters what he knows about the way a constituency Labour Party has been run has all the hallmarks of a squalid cover-up.

For the Leader of the Opposition to keep schtum and hope that the lurid allegations of vote-rigging in Falkirk would go away is not what we are entitled to expect from a man who would be Prime Minister.

He has also let down, and let down badly, Johann Lamont, the leader of Scottish Labour.

Mr Miliband has refused to publish the report of an internal inquiry into how a senior Unite official and friend of the union’s general secretary, Len McCluskey, came to be selected as the parliamentary candidate. Initially both the candidate, Karie Murphy, and the Falkirk constituency chairman, Stevie Deans, were suspended from Labour. But they were subsequently reinstated and the inquiry report left unpublished when it was said that an initial protest about the selection was withdrawn.

The whole issue took on the air of a genuine farce last night when the couple at the centre of the vote-rigging scandal appeared to change their story for the third, or was it the fourth, time – insisting, after talks with Labour officials, that they apparently had no complaints about Unite or Labour or, indeed, anyone.

But still Mr Miliband says nothing. Figures calling for a new inquiry and/or the publication, in full, of the initial report include Ms Lamont; former chancellor Alistair Darling; at least one leading member of the shadow cabinet; MPs; local councillors; and members of Falkirk Labour Party.

One Labour MP said: “We need an independent investigation, probably by a QC, into why that initial inquiry was effectively dropped.”

Ms Lamont has been in a very difficult position, not all of it of her own making. When she was made leader of the party north of the border in 2011 it was stated she would be in charge of all of the party, not just those in the Scottish Parliament. As events in Falkirk have shown, this was something less than accurate. According to Scottish Labour sources, because of a loophole in the Labour rule book, anything concerning the selection of candidates for Westminster elections still comes under the jurisdiction of the party’s ruling national executive committee in London. As a result, when questions began to be raised about what was happening in Falkirk, Scottish Labour say they had to refer the matter to London and it was then that Mr Miliband announced an inquiry and also asked the police to investigate the affair.

The upshot is that, much to her discomfiture but to the delight of the SNP and Tories, Ms Lamont has looked impotent to deal with a major issue in her own backyard.

She didn’t do herself many favours and was given an uncomfortable ride on BBC’s Good Morning Scotland yesterday when she felt duty bound to stick to her script that there were more important issues for her to deal with – like falling living standards. And although she has read the report she refused to reveal its contents and also refused steadfastly to utter a word of criticism of Mr Miliband. However, she did break ranks somewhat to say that in the light of the allegations a new inquiry was probably necessary.

The issue, seen in conjunction with the threat to close the Grangemouth petrochemical complex, has not exactly been a good advertisement for the Labour Party, for the Unite trade union or even for Scotland. Mr Deans was Unite’s convenor of shop stewards at the plant but resigned after being confronted by Ineos managers over spending up to a quarter of his time — sending around 1,000 emails — organising the Falkirk Labour Party.

While Mr McCluskey is credited with saving the plant by conceding to all the management’s demands, he has been widely criticised for sanctioning hard-line union tactics in which his members have protested noisily at the home of Ineos directors.

Mr Miliband won plaudits for his declared intention of changing his party’s relationship with the unions. However, his silence suggests that he still doesn’t want to antagonise his paymasters. That may be unfair but what else are we to conclude?